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Pearline Soap – Williamsburg, Brooklyn 1998

Pearline Soap - Williamsburg, Brooklyn 1998
© Frank H. Jump

6 Comments

  1. James Pyle made soap at 350 Washington St. in Manhattan in the 1860s. The product was sold in grocery stores as Pyle’s O.K. Soap. He later moved the factory to 414 Washington St. and sold Pearline Soap in one-pound packages at 15 cents per package. It was a coarse white powder formulated with sodium carbonate for washing clothes. A colorful vintage ad can be seen at the link: 🙂

    A fascinating period photo is at the Library of Congress which depicts a little girl sitting on opened crates of Pearline washing compound, crying. She apparently mistook the small boxes for Crackerjacks! The link is 🙂

    The Pearline Soap factory is being converted to condominiums with a cool $5 million starting price. Photos, a map, and more old Pearline ads are at this link 🙂

  2. fadingad says:

    Robert- Thanks for the happy links 🙂

  3. fadingad says:

    Robert, the link to the Library of Congress image was a temp link. Can you find that again? The little girl on the soap.

  4. […] are images Robert Baptista (coloranthistory.org) found while commenting on some of my Pearline Soap postings. Pearline Soap ad: Williamsburg, […]

  5. Soapea says:

    Beautiful photo, and the links! Thank you.